Santino J. Rivera

(PNS reporting from CHICAGO) Cheesy burrito fans and hashtag activists, your prayers have been answered! Taco Bell will debut a new menu item Monday – the Verso-Quesarito-Burrito, a burrito wrapped in a quesadilla with Mexican poetry written on the tortilla.

You can also order the quesadilla-burrito hybrid with shredded chicken or steak. As an added bonus, the Verso-Quesarito-Burrito will feature poems written on the tortilla by Mexican day laborers. They’ll be versifying using only gluten-free ink, of course (photo.)[Mas…]

“I will do just about anything to win in Arizona’s heavily Hispanic 7th Congressional District,” Chavez said in a press release, “including rising from the grave if that’s what it takes.”

A Chavez spokesman said the newly-registered Democratic candidate (until recently a two-time Republican loser) had been “flooded with calls” and was no longer speaking to the press, but if he did decide to answer questions, he would not discuss how he came back from the dead or what the afterlife is like. [Mas…]

(PNS reporting from CHICAGO) Black coffee, menudo, In-N-Out,mota, maybe even a little hair of the dog — all common hangover remedies, right? But according to a study from Mexican culinary genius Rick Bayless, a new discovery might have them all beat: 7-Up.

“People have helplessly suffered hangovers forever and without any kind of cure. Well, I have discovered the single greatest hangover cure of all-time and can back it up with scientific evidence. No one has ever thought of this before…it’s 7-Up, my friends. You’re welcome!” Bayless told PNS. [Mas…]

It’s Octember! Or is it Septober? It’s the time of the year when the weather starts getting cooler, politic shenanigans get ignored and eyes begin to glaze over from lethal injections of sports, beer and chicken wings.

‘Merica.

Septober is also the pseudo-month that we deal in tragedies of two kinds: “Hispanic Heritage” and banned books. Interestingly enough, both tragedies cross paths in Tucson, AZ, ground zero for censorship in the 21st century.

The ballad of Tucson is a long and sad corrido. It will make you laugh and it will also make you cry. If all the world is a stage then Tucson definitely has its players; many of them clowns but most of them sad, voiceless puppets manipulated by a system hell-bent on pushing an agenda of whitewashed ambivalence. [Mas…]

If you have been following the divine comedy in Tucson at all then you already know that they not only destroyed their wildly successful Mexican-American Studies program but that they also banned a laundry list of books by Chicana/o authors, closed barrio schools and fired MAS teachers. [Mas…]

If you grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, you remember the film Colors. It spawned a lot of headlines about violence at movie theaters and the spread of Los Angeles-style gang wars. The Guardian Angels even protested the flick and left a toilet bowl outside of Sean Penn’s home as an “award.” They also strapped makeshift coffins to the roofs of their cars.

The film had this weird mystique. Colors introduced suburban kids (and their parents) to a whole new world – one they would spend the next decade imitating. Long gone were the fierce but safe dance-offs in Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo – in Colors, Turbo and Ozone would have simply blown the heads off of Electro-Rock’s crew with a 12-gauge shotgun. [Mas…]

(PNS reporting from PHOENIX) Now we know why child killer George Zimmerman was speeding through Texas with a gun in his vehicle — he was on his way to a new gig in Maricopa County, AZ. Sheriff Joe Arpaio broke the news in a Tweet late Wednesday night: The sheriff has a new school patrol […]

(PNS reporting from TAMPA) Chicano actor Jesse Borrego, famous for Blood In, Blood Out, is set to unveil a new salsa that he says will “light a fire under your ass!” The salsa, named “Chinga Tu Madre!” will be sold in cans only and is slated for release this September by the Rick Bayless Division […]

Benjamin Medrano, 47, won Fresnillo’s July 7 election and will take office this September. His election — he is said to be the first openly-gay mayor in Mexico’s history — has led some observers to speculate that famously-macho Mexicans didn’t really know Medrano was gay, or didn’t believe him when he told them. Hey, Zacatecas! […]

(PNS reporting from NEW YORK CITY) Cable news reporter Geraldo Rivera was named a “person of interest” Sunday and detained for questioning in a “sexting” case by police here after he posted a twisted semi-nude “selfie” on Twitter. [Editor’s Note: Ruh, roh! Looks like Mr. Rivera has deleted that Tweet! But that’s the photo from […]

(PNS reporting from ALAMEDA) If the Doritos Locos Tacos from Taco Bell are not satisfying your diarrheal needs, don’t worry! The chain is introducing a chef Rick Bayless-inspired burrito that features Flamin’ Hot Fritos corn chips as a summer-only item until early August. The burrito, which will retail for 99 cents, has rice, warm nacho cheese, beef, […]

(PNS reporting from PHOENIX) It’s all over, folks. A lucky person — maybe you — has won the eBay auction for Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s sex sling. The winning bid was $2,600. Arpaio will miss the sex toy, which he touted as “very used” and full of “memories.” “We will have an announcement on my sling auction […]

An Open Letter to the Denver Public Library Commission: I am writing in response to the so-called “ire” that was reported in the Denver Post regarding the new West Denver library being named after Rodolfo Corky Gonzales. I am an author/publisher and a Denver native. I am also Chicano. My roots in Denver run deep […]

Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor on SNL POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz‘s recent article about the word gringo ignited a shitstorm of debate. White people came out of the woodwork to declare how they’ve been traumatized all these years because of it. This got me thinking about racial slurs and how we use them in these […]

(PNS reporting from OUTER ESPACE) Let that long-held breath out, folks. The Alpha Mexnetic Spectrometer has picked up a lot of mysterious antimatter in low Earth orbit recently – but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a sign of falling Mexi-matter, AKA “Space Mexicans” falling to Earth, according to NASA. In fact, even with the 400,000 pocho-particles […]

(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON, D.C.) Master flip-flopper Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) now supports allowing undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States, receive legal status and eventually apply to become citizens, just so long as he can call them “chili-choking pepper bellies” and they provide lawn service to his friends and family. But Paul said […]

(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON, D.C.) Reeling from back-to-back presidential losses and struggling to cope with the country’s changing racial and ethnic makeup, the Republican National Committee plans to spend $10 million this year to send hundreds of party workers in white sheets into Hispanic communities to promote its brand. With Operation Wetback 2016, the committee […]

(PNS reporting from PHOENIX) Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has fallen and he can’t get up. The 80-year old remains in St. Joseph’s Hospital after falling and breaking his left shoulder on the way to lunch. Doctors say they can fix him up better than ever: Joe Arpaio, racist cop. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild […]

So, since the last time I wrote about the lack of racial diversity on The Walking Dead a lot of shit happened. For starters, I got a shout out in La Cucaracha from POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz. There was a lot of buzz online about my story and I received a few encouraging tweets from […]

(PNS reporting from ARIZONA) The 10-year-old at Frank Elementary School in Guadalupe who got arrested Tuesday learned a valuable lesson about Sheriff Joe Arpaio and celebrity deputy Steven Seagal: Don’t fuck with them. According to the sheriff’s office, the boy had planned to beat one of his classmates at the Maricopa County school with a […]

(PNS reporting from ARIZONA) Last week, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne proposed putting a gun in the hands of at least one kindergartner in every school and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is running with the idea. “America’s toughest sheriff” wants a grenade launcher for every student. According to Sheriff Joe, after he puts armed posse members near schools, he […]